XDA News Articles

Sony Xperia illumination bar API released! That and more are covered by Jordan, as he reviews all the important stories from this week. Included in this week's news is an article about using CloudCube to tame your clouds and news about Ariel Shimoni and XDA Elite Recognized Developer Stericson speaking at XDA:DevCon 2013. Jordan talks about the other video released this week on XDA Developer TV. XDA Developer TV Producer Jayce released a video talking about how a to make...

Further testament to Sony's increasing support for third-party developers comes with their release of 'experimental' APIs for that funky translucent illumination bar found on many of their phones such as the Xperia S. The new APIs will allow developers to play and experiment with the bar's functionality in various situations, apps, and ROMs. Announced at Sony's Developer World, the APIs will allow developers to control the bar in unrestricted ways never before possible, such as setting the LED color, controlling...

Sony now allows you to install custom firmware on your Smartwatch device. That story and more are covered by Jordan, as he reviews all the important stories from this week. Included in this week's news is an article about Daniel Nazer speaking at XDA:DevCon 2013 and news about the contest. Additionally, the Paranoid Android team has open sourced HALO. Jordan talks about the other videos released this week on XDA Developer TV. XDA Developer TV Producer Kevin gave us video on USB On-The-Go,...

A “top secret” court order forces Verizon to hand over your call data. That and more are covered by Jordan, as he reviews all the important stories from this week. Included in this week's news is an article about leaving Google Apps and news about the Sony Xperia Tablet Z contest. Jordan talks about the other videos released this week on XDA Developer TV. XDA Developer TV Producer TK gave us video on Installing OTAs with Root, Steve shows us how...

Sony continues its AOSP initiative by releasing it on the Sony Xperia Tablet Z. That and more are covered by Jordan, as he reviews all the important stories from this week. Included in this week's news is a tutorial on using HttpClient to upload and download with your App. And in related news, there is an article on how to promote your app. Jordan talks about the other videos released this week on XDA Developer TV. XDA Developer TV Producer Jayce released...

Linux 3.0.8 kernel is available for 2011 Sony Xperia Devices. That story and more are covered by Jordan, as he reviews all the important stories from this week. Included in this week's news is an article about AT&T's Samsung Galaxy S 4 being released with a locked bootloader and in related and unsurprising news, the Galaxy S4 bootloader has been unlocked. Jordan talks about the other videos released this week on XDA Developer TV. XDA Developer TV Producer Steve had an App Shootout...

XDA:DevCon, a conference for developers by developers was announced this week. That story and more are covered by Jordan, as he reviews all the important stories from this week. Included in this week's news is a discussion of AOSP being released for the Sony Xperia Z and an article on enabling ADB on ChromeOS. Jordan talks about the other videos released this week on XDA Developer TV. XDA Developer TV Producer Steve talked about his switch from Samsung to HTC, Kevin gave us a...

The Sony Socialife app has been ported to old Xperia Devices. That story and more are covered by Jordan, as he reviews all the important stories from this week. Included in this week's news is a discussion of an universal Arduino interface for Android and XDA hitting 5 million members. Jordan talks about the other videos released this week on XDA Developer TV. XDA Developer TV Producer Rob had talked about Five Tips you might not have known and XDA Developer...

If you're not familiar with Sony's Timescape, it was Xperia's main social media app up until the beginning of 2013, when it was replaced with Socialife by Sony. Consisting of scrolling panels of updates from your connected social networks such as Facebook and Twitter as well as displaying your call history and messages among many others, Timescape has always been a compatible with only Xperia devices running stock firmwares, with many users of custom Jelly Bean ROMs missing out. By...

The White House replies to the SIM-unlocking petition, and they agree! That story and more are covered by Jordan when he reviews all the important stories from this week. Jordan talks about Sony Mobile releasing a develop build of Firefox OS and Jordan mentions his video of Boot2Gecko. Jordan talks about the mods collection for the Xperia P, U, Go and Sola. Jordan talks about the other videos released this week on XDA Developer TV. XDA Developer TV Producer and...

Just because a device hasn’t been released, is in limited release, or isn’t in the hand of a developer doesn’t mean that developers cannot root the device. XDA Elite Recognized Developer Chainfire has rooted a pre-release device a few times, such as when he remotely rooted the Samsung Galaxy S III. Today, we are talking about Chainfire’s CF-Auto-Root in a roundabout way. XDA Recognized Developer DooMLoRD took the Nexus 4 version of CF-Auto-Root, modified it a bit, did a dance...

Android 4.2.2 is rolling out to most current Nexus devices. That story and more are covered by Jordan, as he reviews all the important stories from this week. Jordan talks about the other video released this week on XDA Developer TV. XDA Developer TV Producer TK released an app review this week comparing two gesture control apps, Trigger and LMT. In Sony Xperia news, Jordan talks about the kernel source release for the Sony Xperia Z, a device that isn't...

Here at XDA, we take the responsibility of carriers and OEMs to provide timely updates to their devices (and to honor their GPL requirements) seriously. There are those who do a good job (Samsung is one of them), those who don't always do a good job (HTC, Motorola, LG), and those who do a terrible job (Huawei, ZTE, Rockchip to name a few). But there is one who right now is doing a terrific job, and that is Sony Mobile. Back...

Another wonderful International CES has passed us by. The event was filled with many exciting displays, like the Intel Ultrabook Tree, but most important were the announcements made by many manufactures. Some announcements are still years out, embodying nothing more than an idea. Other announcements having working prototypes, while still others are in the final stages before release or have been released. (more…)

At the 2013 International CES, manufacturer of the year Sony released two phones. The phones are similar and share similar names. These devices are called the Sony Xperia Z and Xperia ZL. The Xperia Z is water and dust proof while the Xperia ZL has a hardware camera button. XDA News Specialist Jordan was on site and got a chance to get his hands on the Xperia twins. Jordan sat down and talked with the folks and Sony. In this video,...

After much fanfare and high production value videos and presentation efforts, including an XDA Elite Recognized Developer AdamOutler-style tear down and reassembly videos of cameras and mobile devices, the executives at Sony took the stage at CES to talk about their wares. They spoke about their commitment to pushing the envelope. They talked at length about their new televisions and 4K content. But the really exciting part was when they announced the new Sony Xperia Z. With a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon...

When you purchase a device, it's always desirable to be able to use it as you wish. Sadly, this is often not the case. This is because most of the time, people purchase devices with a carrier subsidy. What this means is that essentially the carrier is letting you purchase the device at a reduced rate, say $300 off suggested retail, with the terms of a contract stating you will stay with them for (usually) two years. This guarantees that...

It is Friday, and Jordan is here to round up the news stories from this week on XDA. Jordan talks about HoRNDIS, which allows you to tether on a Mac easily. In XDA-specific news, Jordan talks about developers discussion forum being trialed in the Note II forums. Jordan mentions the three videos posted this week on XDA Developer TV. The first video released this week was by XDA TV Producer TK and talked about rooting the Samsung Galaxy Note II. The...

If you've followed XDA for a while, you will likely know that we have somewhat mixed feelings towards Sony and the attitude they used to (notice the use of past tense) take towards the developer community. If anyone remembers back to the legal battle against George Hotz, where a multi-million dollar corporation essentially went full force against an underground developer/hacker for letting people know how to run CFW (custom firmware) on their Playstation consoles, it was something that earned (and...

We recently told you about numerous things Sony has been doing in an attempt to embrace the independent developer community. Starting with official ICS test builds then providing instructions to build kernels for their Xperia S, they are now at it again. On their Developer World Blog, they just recently announced a new program that they are calling the Device Loaner Program. Essentially, if you are an Android developer and would like to test your application against a physical device but cannot afford...

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